Yes, I visited the Norths. Would've liked to have heard more from Steph; she was one of my favorite characters.
I know Chloe is dreaming during most of the "Dad" visions, but there's a sequence near the end, where she's travelling to where Sera is being held, and Dad converses with her on the roadside and then in her truck. That happens at a point where Chloe can't and wouldn't be sleeping -- she's pressed for time, racing to rescue Sera -- and so it cannot be a dream. I don't seriously think Chloe is psychotic. I'm more commenting on the sloppy writing of that episode.
About Rachel's power -- she burned down an entire forest when she saw her Dad kissing a strange woman. And yet discovering that her Dad lied to her about who her mother was her entire life, and that he kept her from knowing her biological mother her entire life -- all of that produces nothing but an angry tirade at the dinner table? I would've thought she'd do a Talking Heads, at the very least (burning down the house). And in an angry fight with a drug dealer, no flames, just an inexplicably dumb decision to hit him in the head with a plank of wood, which gets her stabbed. I get that the fire stopped because she was sedated, but that's all they did with it.
I agree it was interesting to get to know Rachel. But the girl can start fires with her mind. That's pretty interesting. And yet, they didn't do anything with it. Max's powers were an integral part of every episode. Here, after the power was introduced, it got relegated to some distant backstory. And they didn't even talk about it, beyond that first "WTF was that?" reaction. Your best friend starts fires with her mind, and that doesn't seem worthy of discussion?
But the main thing that bothered me was what I'll call the sentimentality of the episode -- the obvious attempt to play on the heartstrings (and not very successfully). LiS had its moments of this, too, but in general was more subtle. This one (especially this episode) was like they were shouting through a megaphone: "Look how emotional the characters are! Oh my god, the drama!" And the situations aren't set up well enough, or written well enough, to really get that emotional reaction (at least from me). I'm too aware of how hard they are trying to get/manipulate an emotional effect in the audience, and so I end up feeling detached.
